


Just Like Breathing

by Moony394



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Drarry, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Harry is just done with fighting, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, so does Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-03-09 20:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13489383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moony394/pseuds/Moony394
Summary: Harry decides he's had enough fighting for a lifetime. When Harry receives his Hogwarts letter, inviting him back for an eighth year, he never has a doubt in his mind that he's going to be returning. He needs the feeling of home that so far only Hogwarts has been able to give him, and the chance to actually figure out what he was going to do with his life.But, Harry soon discovers that maybe there's something else that can make him feel as at home as he does at Hogwarts.Someone else.Someone who, for Harry, makes everything with them seem just like breathing.





	1. Going Back

_“Just like breathing_  
_Something that I was born to do_  
_I've always been a part of you_  
_Just like breathing_  
_Every day I need you to live_  
_Like breathing.”_ Just Like Breathing by Sandra  
*******

Harry stared in disbelief at the Hogwarts acceptance letter in his hands. He had already quickly read over it, and was standing slightly away from one of the dusty old sitting room windows of 12 Grimmauld Place. Harry, for a moment, felt as if he were thrown back to the summer before his first year, just finding out he was a wizard.The letter he had received, was an official Hogwarts letter stating that Hogwarts was inviting all of its previous seventh years back to attend as eighth years. He had never thought he would go back there. Though, there was never a doubt in his mind when he had first read the letter that he would be going back, back to the place he had considered home for 6 years. He only hoped it would still feel that way after everything that happened, because he needed the feeling of home that Hogwarts gave him more than anything.

Predictably, the floo almost immediately dinged, and he walked over to the fire to answer it.

“Harry!” Hermione’s smiling face greeted him from the fire. “Did you get your letter? Are you going back?” She was practically bursting with excitement at the prospect of going back and completing her education, and Harry smiled at her slightly.

“Yeah, I’m going back.” He said, trying in vain to attempt cheerfulness.

Hermione grinned even wider, though he had previously thought that it would be impossible for her to do so. He was glad that his false cheerfulness was ignored for the moment.

“Great! Well, Ron and I are of course going to go back, and I've already called some of our other friends, who also said that they were returning. I'm so excited to get back into the routine of things!”

Harry couldn't help but frown slightly. “But don't you think that…” He trailed off for a moment, “I'm afraid that…”

Hermione was more subdued now, frowning at him in worry. “What Harry?” She asked softly.

“That Hogwarts won't feel like home anymore. I don't think that I'd be able to cope with it if it didn't…” Harry finished, the familiar subdued expression back on his face.

“Oh Harry…” Hermione started, the tears in her eyes a mile away from the excitement that had shown in them just a few moments before. “I'm coming through.” She said, before a whoosh sounded and suddenly she was standing in front of him, quickly pulling him into a tight hug.

Harry tensed for a moment, before relaxing and resting his head on her shoulder, returning the hug. He didn't cry though, he had decided that he had done plenty enough crying about the war over the summer.

Hermione pulled away after a moment, and rested both of her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them comfortingly. “Harry, of course it's not going to be exactly the same. Too much stuff has happened there for that to be the case. But, every great home has its scratches, it's what you make of them that affects the way they make you feel. And, if you want it to feel like home, than it damn well will.”

Harry was shocked at her heartfelt speech, and the determination that shown in her eyes. The fact that she had cursed showed how much she meant her words. He pulled her into another, much tighter hug. “Thank you Hermione.” He mumbled into her shoulder.

When they let go, Hermione was giving him a bright (if a tad bit worried) smile. “Anytime. I'm just glad you talked to me about it, I - we’ve been worried about you.”

Harry attempted a reassuring smile. “I'm fine ‘Mione, really. I've just got a few… demon’s to battle is all.”

She gave him a sad smile before sighing. “I've got to go, I promised Ron I would meet him for lunch at a café down the street from our house. We’ll meet a week from today at Diagon Alley for our school things?”

Harry gave her another forced smile. “It'll be nice to go there again, I haven't been since the war.”

Hermione quickly hugged him tightly before giving him one last smile and disappearing through the floo.

Harry ran his hand through his already messy hair, thinking about the fact that it was going to be a long next few weeks before he returned to Hogwarts.

*******  
_A few weeks later…_

Harry walked through the entrance of Platform 9 ¾, feeling slightly odd not having to push a cart through it with him. Since he could do magic outside of school now, he decided that he would just shrink his luggage this year so he wouldn't have to haul the large cart. But, he wasn't entirely empty handed.

He thought back to a week ago, when he, Ron, and Hermione had gone to Diagon Alley. He smiled slightly. It had been a fun time, he had laughed and joked with his friends, and picked up the things on his list of stuff that he needed for Hogwarts. But the main part of his trip that made it so great, was a purchase that he made that wasn't on his list. They had been passing the pet shop, and he had glanced over, and a tiny black kitten with white spots on one of its eyes and two of its feet, ran out of the doors when someone had left. He paused from his walking in shock, ready to quickly stop the runaway kitty, but it had just ran right towards him and climbed up his leg before coming to rest in a sitting position on his shoulder. He remembered, chuckling quietly to himself, that the cat had looked at home on his shoulder, as if it had belonged there. His friends we're looking on at the scenario in both mild shock and amusement, and Harry shook his head and motioned for them to follow him into the store. He had decided then and there that if the little runaway kitten didn't have and owner, than she would by the time he left the store. As it turned out after talking to the store clerk, she was the runt of her litter, but with her adventures tendencies and joyful attitude, you wouldn't have been able to tell. The clerk had joked that if she didn't know any better, she would think that the kitten was muggle puppy. Harry then expressed his interest in adopting her, and the clerk smiled and told him the price and that the kitten was female. Harry smiled and quickly grabbed the essentials for his new pet before thanking and paying the woman. His friends had told him to meet them outside of the quidditch supply shop during the whole ordeal, so he had met them there, officially introducing the kitten the them and smiling the widest that he had in a long time. “Guys, this is Rena.” His friends had smiled at his lit up expression, glad to see him happy. Hermione of course had asked why he had chosen the name that he did, and he had told her that it was because the name meant _‘joyous melody’,_ and after the obvious joy she had, he had thought it was perfect.

He was brought back from his memories when a paw batted at his face, and he looked down and smiled at the kitten in his arms before looking back at his surroundings, surprised to see that he had gotten through the crowd and was about to walk onto the train without even realizing it. He got on and started to make his way down the train, looking through the compartment windows to see if he could spot his friends. He finally found them in one of the ones towards the back, and walked in, giving them a small smile.

“Hey Harry!” Ron greeted, giving him a bright smile, arm wrapped around Hermione’s shoulders, who was of course reading a book.

Hermione looked up at Ron’s greeting, and gave Harry a bright smile, closing her book. “Hey.”

“Hey guys. What’ve you been up to?” Harry asked, sitting down on the bench across from them and idly petting the little kitten still curled up in his arms. Noticing that he was now seated, Rena climbed up into his shoulder and buzzed his cheek, before looking at the other two people in the room with her head tilted slightly to the side.

“The same really, haven't had much else to do now that we don't have any more dark lords to battle.” Ron joked, though it didn't really touch his eyes. “Mione here though,” He began, nudging her slightly, “has been studying non stop for the school year. I've been _trying_ to get her to take a few breaks now and then.”

Hermione fixed him with a half hearted glare. “This school year is very important. This is our last year, and we have to study to get our NEWTs.”

“Typical Hermione.” Harry said, shaking his head affectionately and chuckling.

They continued on like this for a while, before Hermione continued reading and Ron just started watching her affectionately. Harry felt like he was intruding on a private moment. He distracted himself by playing with his little kitten for a few minutes, before quietly slipping out of the compartment to give them some alone time. He set on finding at least a mostly empty compartment, and made his way towards the end of the train.


	2. Burying Old Conficts

_“Conflict cannot survive without your participation.”_ \--Wayne Dyer

***

The emptiest compartment was at the end of the train and even then there was one person in it. One person who just happened to be Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy only looked a little better than he had at he and his mother’s trials. The trials. They were definitely something that Harry definitely wouldn’t forget. The once once proud and smirking blond haired Slytherin had looked broken, a deep and hollow kind of broken. Like he had been through a hell perfectly designed to torture him and then been told that he should be normal again. Harry had felt a severe amount of empathy for him in that moment, a feeling that he knew exactly what he felt like. He had known then that he had to help him. So he remembered the bit that Malfoy and his mother had done to help him in the war, and by reciting that to the jury he managed to get both he and his mother mostly pardoned with minimal consequences. He and his mother were sentenced to six months of community service and the last Harry had heard they’d spent their time in the rebuilding of Hogwarts.

He realized then that he had been standing outside of the compartment a few seconds too long when Rena batted hat his face from his shoulder. He smiled and pet her before quickly opening the door.

The door made a little more noise than he’d meant it too when it opened, and he cringed when Malfoy jumped. In a moment, he made the decision to, if he couldn’t be friends with him (which was probably very unlikely), he could at the very least offer him a truce.

He decided to ignore Malfoy’s initial sneer at his entrance into there, and offered him a small smile. “Sorry about that. Um, do you mind if I sit here? I didn’t really feel like watching Ron and Hermione go at each other and everywhere else was full.”

Malfoy looked at him in surprise, the sneer gone from his face. “Sure.” he said softly, looking away.

Harry’s smile grew slightly as he went to sit down across from him, and pet the small kitty that had moved down from his shoulder and to his arms when he sat down. A few silent moments passed and it wasn’t until Rena moved from his arms and back up to his shoulder again that he decided to speak. “Malfoy?” he started, trying to get his attention (he had started reading a book.)

He just glanced up at him, an eyebrow raised in acknowledgement.

Harry inhaled a breath, steeling himself. “I was thinking… Our old rivalry seems kind’ve stupid and childish now. And, I for one, am done with fighting. So, do you think that maybe, we could have a truce? Start fresh? I don’t know, maybe we could even be friends?” he stopped himself there, knowing he was rambling. He couldn’t help it, he was practically vibrating with nerves.

Looking at Malfoy’s face again, he noticed that he’d again managed to shock him. _‘Strange,’_ he thought absently, _‘Malfoy doesn’t strike me as the kind of person that is shocked easily.’_

As if he’d heard his thoughts, he quickly composed himself and his expression took on a more mildly amused appearance, before it turned dark again. “Why would you want to be civil with a Death Eater?” he asked, self hatred evident in his voice.

Harry’s heart broke a little for him, as it did every time he saw the true effects and damage from the war. “You are not a Death Eater, at least not by choice. You only ever tried to do what you could to save your family. I don’t blame you for all of the things that you did. Hell, I would do the exact same thing if I were in your position. If I ever truly thought you were a Death Eater, I wouldn’t have spoken up at you and your mother’s trials.” At some point during his little speech, his voice had picked up a certain urgency that surprised even himself.

A third time he had managed to shock Malfoy in a short amount of time, he had to have achieved some sort of record.

Malfoy was shocked to the point that this time he didn’t even bother schooling his expression and a contemplative expression mixed in with the shocked one. A moment passed, and then he gave him a small smile. “Okay Potter,” he started softly (and maybe even hopefully), “truce.”

Harry flashed him a huge, breathtaking grin and held out his hand for him to shake. “Hi, I’m Harry Potter. I’m kind’ve fucked up with a lot of problems but do you think that maybe you might want to be friends?”

He stared blankly at his hand for a moment, momentarily lost in memories of the train first year, before smiling and taking it. “I’m Draco Malfoy. I’m kind of fucked up too and I’ve got this ugly mark on my arm but if you’re willing to look past my shit than I can look past yours.”

Harry continued to grin at him, and didn’t realize he was holding onto his hand a second too long until Malfoy let go. He blushed slightly and diverted his attention to his cat. She was still curled around his shoulders and he pulled her down so he could look at her. She batted his face with her little paw and he giggled.

”What’s it’s name?” Malfo- Draco (what was he supposed to call him now?) asked him tentatively.

Harry smiled at him softly. “Her name is Rena. I got her over the summer. I wanted another pet, but-” he paused, smile faltering for a moment, “I couldn’t bring myself to get another owl. And then this one practically tackled me outside of the shop she was being sold in, and I had to get her.” He figured he would go ahead and answer the blond’s unspoken question as well.

Draco gave him a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry about your owl, by the way.”

”It’s okay. It was a while ago, I’ve had a bit of time to get over it. We all lost a lot in the war.”

Draco’s smile became very clearly strained. “We did.”

A tense and awkward moment of silence passed, before Harry decided to move past it and onto lighter subjects. “Would you like to hold her?” he asked with a small smile, motioning to the kitten in his arms.

Draco looked surprised for a moment, before nodding.

Harry lifted the kitten from his arms and into Draco’s waiting ones. The look of awe and wonder on his face as he pet the little kitten made him smile. After a few moments of him petting her, to Draco's surprise she climbed up him and curled around his shoulders.

He grinned at him. “She really likes you. The only other people she ever does that too are Luna and I.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not even Granger or Weasley?”

Harry laughed. “No, not even them. It's kind of funny actually, she doesn't like them much. Especially Ron, it's like she can sense his dislike of cats.”

Draco smiled. “She probably can, animals are usually pretty good at reading humans.” True to his words, the little black kitten sat up a little straighter from her place on the blond’s shoulders.

A few moments of comfortable silence passed as the two boys occupied themselves with different things--Harry was reading a defence book he had dug out of his bag while Draco entertained Rena--before they heard the train squeak to a stop. They were thankfully both already dressed in their school robes, as they both were surprised that they had already arrived. A quick look out the window told them that yes, they had actually arrived and weren’t stopped by something as they had been in third year (and if Harry let out a quiet sigh of relief, than who was to blame him really because this year just might be the only normal year he ever got in Hogwarts).

Harry put his book back in his bag and left it for the house elves to put in his room before collecting Rena back from Draco and allowing her to settle back in her usual spot on his shoulders. He smiled at the Slytherin and the two of them exited the compartment side by side. Harry wondered amusedly as they walked what people’s reactions are going to be when they see them being civil- _friendly_ towards one another. Hell, he even wondered over Ron and Hermione’s reactions. Hermione would probably be suspicious and confused, but she’d ultimately accept his decision, be happy with him about it even. Ron on the other hand would probably be angry about it and think he was insane. Harry did not look forward to dealing with him.

They made it to the carriages and sat down in one that already had Luna in it. Harry made conversation with Draco and caught up with Luna throughout the ride up to the castle, and the three of them ended up deciding to walk to the Great Hall together before going to their respective tables.

Harry walked over to the Gryffindor table, and sat next to a gaping Ron and Hermione. Harry cringed mentally. _‘This is going to be a long meal,’_ he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter! 
> 
> -Moony :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I hope you enjoy it so far! I really like the idea of Harry getting a cat after Hedwig, getting an owl for him would be to hard so soon after he lost her.   
> If you find any spelling or grammar mistakes, or have any suggestions, please feel free to tell me in the comments and I'll try to incorporate them and/or fix them.  
> I'll try to update soon, but until then...  
> I hope you have a nice day! (No matter what day you're reading this)  
> :)


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